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the only universal truth about cancers is that the earlier they are caught, the better the response to treatment.

Except that this isn't even remotely true. That was a nice hypothesis a couple of decades ago, but it's turned out to be much more complicated than that. Some cancers can be treated very late in the game, some early, some it doesn't seem to make a difference when you do it. It's a very reasonable supposition, just happens not to be a correct one.

[citation needed]

I will respectfully disagree. Yes, I agree some cancers can be treated in later stages, but I did not say that they can't. As you will see in almost every cancer, there is a precipitous decline in survival based on major staging (denoted by the roman numeral). There are a few *subtypes* in colorectal cancer that have variable survival (likely multifactorial due to changing definitions, evolving treatment protocols, and lower numbers of patients due to the subdivisions of the group), but I think you can see the trend. In fact, let's conduct a little experiment. Look me up when you get a diagnosis of cancer, we'll wait until you're stage IV until treatment is started. And we'll see what your outcome is. Granted the n will be 1, but methinks you will not be happy with _your_ outcome. Now, here are my examples, please cite yours. I will warn you I do not accept data that can not be reproduced or is not peer-reviewed

Breast:

Stage 5-year Survival Rate

0 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 93%

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 88%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxx 81%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxx 67%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxx 41%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxx 49%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15%

Colon:

Stage 5-year Observed Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 67%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 59%

IIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 37%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 73%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 46%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 28%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6%

Rectal:

Stage 5-year Observed Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 65%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 52%

IIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 32%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 33%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6%

Non-small cell lung cancer:

Stage 5-year Survival Rate

IA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 49%

IB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 30%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 31%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 14%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 5%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 1%

Small cell lung cancer:

Stage 5-year Relative Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 31%

II xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 19%

III xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 8%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 2%

Similar statistics exist for: bladder cancer, cervial cancer, endomertrial cance

the only universal truth about cancers is that the earlier they are caught, the better the response to treatment.

Except that this isn't even remotely true. That was a nice hypothesis a couple of decades ago, but it's turned out to be much more complicated than that. Some cancers can be treated very late in the game, some early, some it doesn't seem to make a difference when you do it. It's a very reasonable supposition, just happens not to be a correct one.

[citation needed]

I will respectfully disagree. Yes, I agree some cancers can be treated in later stages, but I did not say that they can't. As you will see in almost every cancer, there is a precipitous decline in survival based on major staging (denoted by the roman numeral). There are a few *subtypes* in colorectal cancer that have variable survival (likely multifactorial due to changing definitions, evolving treatment protocols, and lower numbers of patients due to the subdivisions of the group), but I think you can see the trend. In fact, let's conduct a little experiment. Look me up when you get a diagnosis of cancer, we'll wait until you're stage IV until treatment is started. And we'll see what your outcome is. Granted the n will be 1, but methinks you will not be happy with _your_ outcome. Now, here are my examples, please cite yours. I will warn you I do not accept data that can not be reproduced or is not peer-reviewed

Breast:

Stage 5-year Survival Rate

0 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 93%

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 88%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxx 81%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxx 67%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxx 41%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxx 49%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15%

Colon:

Stage 5-year Observed Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 67%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 59%

IIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 37%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 73%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 46%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 28%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6%

Rectal:

Stage 5-year Observed Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 65%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 52%

IIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 32%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 33%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6%

Non-small cell lung cancer:

Stage 5-year Survival Rate

IA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 49%

IB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 30%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 31%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 14%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 5%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 1%

Small cell lung cancer:

Stage 5-year Relative Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 31%

II xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 19%

III xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 8%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 2%

Similar statistics exist for: bladder cancer, cervial cancer, endomertrial cance

the only universal truth about cancers is that the earlier they are caught, the better the response to treatment.

Except that this isn't even remotely true. That was a nice hypothesis a couple of decades ago, but it's turned out to be much more complicated than that. Some cancers can be treated very late in the game, some early, some it doesn't seem to make a difference when you do it. It's a very reasonable supposition, just happens not to be a correct one.

[citation needed]

I will respectfully disagree. Yes, I agree some cancers can be treated in later stages, but I did not say that they can't. As you will see in almost every cancer, there is a precipitous decline in survival based on major staging (denoted by the roman numeral). There are a few *subtypes* in colorectal cancer that have variable survival (likely multifactorial due to changing definitions, evolving treatment protocols, and lower numbers of patients due to the subdivisions of the group), but I think you can see the trend. In fact, let's conduct a little experiment. Look me up when you get a diagnosis of cancer, we'll wait until you're stage IV until treatment is started. And we'll see what your outcome is. Granted the n will be 1, but methinks you will not be happy with _your_ outcome. Now, here are my examples, please cite yours. I will warn you I do not accept data that can not be reproduced or is not peer-reviewed

Breast:

Stage 5-year Survival Rate

0 xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 93%

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 88%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxx 81%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxx 67%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxx 41%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxx 49%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15%

Colon:

Stage 5-year Observed Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 67%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 59%

IIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 37%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 73%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 46%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 28%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6%

Rectal:

Stage 5-year Observed Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 65%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 52%

IIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 32%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 74%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

IIIC xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 33%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 6%

Non-small cell lung cancer:

Stage 5-year Survival Rate

IA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 49%

IB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 45%

IIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 30%

IIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 31%

IIIA xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 14%

IIIB xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 5%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 1%

Small cell lung cancer:

Stage 5-year Relative Survival Rate

I xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 31%

II xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 19%

III xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 8%

IV xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 2%

Similar statistics exist for: bladder cancer, cervial cancer, endomertrial cance

If you ever had cancer yourself you would not make unfunny, insensitive comments..

Why is it insensitive? Because it makes YOU uncomfortable or because you think that's what you're supposed to say? Get a grip. EVERYONE gets sick and dies so grow up and accept it.

And that is one of the WORST attitude to have around folks who are terminal.

Here's a complaint I hear all too often from the folks who are actually suffering from cancer: when someone is dieing, folks are solemn, sad, and afraid to "offend" - which brings down the mood of the cancer sufferer. Regardless if there's any truth to having a "positive" attitude helping one's recovery, joking about it DOES at least make life a little more bearable for the cancer patient.

I have a father striken and he needs a laugh every Goddamn time he can get it! And when folks are so serious around him; it makes HIM feel bad - the LAST thing he needs.

There are of course limts and depends on the person - obviously. I have also been around folks who joked about their prosthetic and sometimes had fun freaking kids out.

Cancer makes people very depressed. Actually the thought of dieing makes most people on our culture depressed and uneasy. We are a death phobic society and it's actually irrational. We WILL die - all of us.

tl;dr - Laughing at Death is the best revenge.

Prostate cancer is very common among older men, but it's more often an annoyance than a killer, since people usually die of other causes before the cancer can kill them.

To quote the doctor treating one of my relatives, it's a cancer you die with, not of.

The relative 5-year survival rate is nearly 100%. The relative 10-year survival rate is 98%. The 15-year relative survival rate is 93%.

(US numbers)

That's why prostate cancer has low priority, compared to e.g. breast cancer, which has a relative 1-year survival rate of 96%, and 85% for 5 years (UK numbers).

See this this document. Go to table 5 on page 8 to see five year relative survival rates for various countries..

Some top Google results for "fasting cancer chemotherapy": http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fasting-might-boost-chemo
"Fasting appears to protect normal cells from chemotherapy's toxic effects by rerouting energy from growing and reproducing to internal maintenance. But cancer cells do not undergo this switch to self-repair and so continue to be susceptible to drug-induced damage -- making for what the researchers call a differential stress resistance. Fasting, then, the authors wrote, should enhance the power of chemotherapies without having to resort to "the more typical strategy of increasing the toxicity of drugs.""

So fasting during chemotherapy works in part precisely because it protects the chemotherapy patient's normal cells from becoming weakened.

Human trials are starting up:
"Clinical Trials: Short-Term Fasting Before Chemotherapy in Treating Patients With Cancer"
http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT01175837

Research by Valter Longo, of the University of South California (USC) in Los Angeles on mice:
"Fasting May Boost Chemo By Weakening Cancer Cells"
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/241454.php
"He and his colleagues found, for example, that repeated cycles of fasting with chemotherapy cured 1 in 5 mice with a highly aggressive form of children's neuroendocrine cancer, and 40% of mice with a less severe form. In either case, no mice survived when treated only with chemo. For their study, in which they used used cancer cells and mice, Longo and colleagues found that for all the cancers they tested, fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed tumor growth and/or limited the spread of tumors. They found that fasting without chemotherapy, slowed the growth of breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma. In several cases, fasting was as effective as chemotherapy."

Cancer patients looking into it:
"48 hr Fasting before Chemo"
http://csn.cancer.org/node/237518

Here are two books related to fasting in general.

One is from a century ago by Upton Sinclair:
http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/fasting-cure-for-health.html

One from a decade or two ago by Joel Fuhrman:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-dr-fuhrman-on-fasting.html
"Therapeutic fasting accelerates the healing process and allows the body to recover from serious disease in a dramatically short period of time. In my practice I have seen fasting eliminate lupus and arthritis, remove chronic skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema, health the digestive tract in patients with ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, and quickly eliminate cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure and angina. In these cases the recoveries were permanent: fasting enabled longtime disease suffers unchain themselves from their multiple toxic dugs and even eliminate the need for surgery, which was recommended to some of them as their only solution."

One problem of course in Western Medicine is than an oncologist can't justifying charging, say, $20,000 for telling a potential customer just to stop eating for a bit. Not sure if the source is accurate, but the sentiment probably is:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/longevity.html
"One-quarter of what you eat keeps you alive.
The other three-quarters keeps your doctor alive.
(Hieroglyph found in an ancient Egyptian tomb.) "

But ultimately, while fasting can help some people, people need to eat healthier long term. One big problem with people today fasting is that there is so many to

Diesel causes cancer. Diesel particles could raise heart attack risks. And I'm sure there are tons of other stuff Diesel is good for, by all means let's have some more.

Vitamin C and vitamins in general are not some magic bullet against common illness.

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/vitamins_common_misconceptions?open
http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatmentsandsideeffects/complementaryandalternativemedicine/dietarysupplements/dietary-supplements-misconceptions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/18/medicineandhealth.sciencenews

Best research we got suggests if you take something like 1000mg a day at the start of a cold you can ease the effects, but you'll also develop nausea, headaches, and kidney stones.

So what's worse? runny nose of a kidney stone?

What is the risk of being killed in a terrorist act?

Taking these figures into account, a rough calculation suggests that in the last five years, your chances of being killed by a terrorist are about one in 20 million. This compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/09/06/how-scared-of-terrorism-should

Vs. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/lifetime-probability-of-developing-or-dying-from-cancer

1 in 20 million vs even a .1% increase in the risk of cancer which at best is 1 in 5000

• American Cancer Society
• CDC
• Surgeon General's Office
• Zhu et al. "Secondhandsmoke stimulates tumor angiogenesis and growth" Cancer Cell (2003)

http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/statistics/penile.htm

The rate of HPV assisted Penile Cancer in the US among the various demographics of men ranges from .4 per 100,000 for Asian / Pacific Islander to .8 per 100,000 white males, up to 1.3 per 100,000 for Hispanic males. If that's your justification for circumcision (and it's totally fine if it is) you're taking some strong proactive steps against a fairly slight risk.

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/PenileCancer/DetailedGuide/penile-cancer-key-statistics

Per year, 1570 *cases* are diagnosed, and roughly 310 men die of penile cancer. You quite literally have a 99.9999% chance of never being diagnosed with penile cancer.

So, aside from the cancer part, the overall message re: Penis isn't much different from owning a gun "Take care of it, keep it clean, and use it safely." (also, don't point it at your eye, it might go off.) It hurts me a bit to see people running around like Thomas Dolby with Echolalia yelling "SCIENCE!" in every instance of X > Y. You're right, the numbers certainly side with science. But the data provided also says that, in the Western world where things like soap and running water aren't privileges, you're pretty much (as in 99%+) OK either way, at least until the boy hits an age where a responsible parent can instill care and handling procedures to prevent later issues like STD's.

(as an aside, there is at least the smallest shred of financial incentive for Doctors to perform circumcisions in the US, but that isn't part of a grand "strip 'em and clip 'em" conspiracy, it's a fundamental flaw in the system. Somewhere along the line it was determined that insurance will pay for it, ergo it gets done. My 84 year old grandmother with cmphysema and congestive heart failure was put on Lipitor the last time she was admitted. Her cholesterol wasn't the problem, Smoking for 70+ years was. As the Doctor bluntly put it, the main reason was "Medicare will pay for it." There was was slight medical benefit. But, for the most part, it was a money move. If you try and break that cycle, though, people start screaming about "Death Panels." Sigh....)

This isn't in the same ballpark as say, not getting your kids a whooping cough vaccine. So help me if I find those fuckers at daycare who sent their little outbreak monkeys in....

Tell me how well that works out for you when you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer treatment out of pocket.

We have insurance to spread the risk, not to encourage people to take stupid risks and make intentionally bad choices.

This misconception, that insurance (whether private or public) will save us all by spreading out the risk, is really the problem. Cancer is not some rare statistical outlier whose cost can be significantly reduced per capita by spreading it out among the entire population. It's the second leading cause of death in the U.S. By the CDC's figures, 23% of the deaths in any given year are due to cancer. If a cancer treatment regiment costs a total of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" per patient, then spreading the risk with insurance only lowers the cost per capita to tens of thousands of dollars.

The American Cancer Society estimates we spend $103.8 billion annually on cancer treatment. Over a population of 310 million, that's $335/yr per capita. Over a 79 year lifetime expectancy, that's $26.5k each person has to pay even with the risk being spread. And this is for one disease! The per capita lifetime premium for all other illnesses like heart disease have to be added on top of that.

Insurance isn't the answer. We have to accept that we're all going to die. Rather than spend "hundreds of thousands of dollars" fighting what in most cases is the inevitable end, lower our expectations. Spend a few thousand or tens of thousand on treatment. If it works, great. If it doesn't, oh well. Your time was up. If you want to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars of your own money to try to eek out an extra 2-3 years of life (the 5-year and 10-year survival rates for cancer are not very good), that's your prerogative. But spending that much should not be the norm, nor the national or insurance standard.

So there are a variety of problems with this. First, what do you mean by harm? Second, while it does depend what yardstick you measure success, I suspect that if one looks at history, you will consider a lot of things we have today to be signs of success that came due to government funding. For example, most of the funding for cancer research in the last seventy years has been from the government. For example, in 1950, childhood leukemia was death sentence. Now, most children with leukemia survive to adulthood, and with some types of leukemia survival rates exceed 90% http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/news/childhood-leukemia-survival-rates-improve-significantly http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/LeukemiainChildren/OverviewGuide/childhood-leukemia-overview-survival-rates. Similar data holds for most other types of cancer as well many other diseases. And while charity (especially to groups like the Jimmy Fund) has certainly helped fund that research, the largescale success came from government funding. So, do you think fewer children dying of cancer is a decent way to measure success?

And it bears note that cancer is not the only example of this. One can go back centuries and point to research and exploration done by governments, where no one else had the resources to do so.

Another relevant measure of success might be the survival of humanity as a whole. Thus for example, existential threats to humanity like large near Earth asteroids are an obvious threat. Are you ok with taxes that go to fund defense against such threats?

So there are a variety of problems with this. First, what do you mean by harm? Second, while it does depend what yardstick you measure success, I suspect that if one looks at history, you will consider a lot of things we have today to be signs of success that came due to government funding. For example, most of the funding for cancer research in the last seventy years has been from the government. For example, in 1950, childhood leukemia was death sentence. Now, most children with leukemia survive to adulthood, and with some types of leukemia survival rates exceed 90% http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/news/childhood-leukemia-survival-rates-improve-significantly http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/LeukemiainChildren/OverviewGuide/childhood-leukemia-overview-survival-rates. Similar data holds for most other types of cancer as well many other diseases. And while charity (especially to groups like the Jimmy Fund) has certainly helped fund that research, the largescale success came from government funding. So, do you think fewer children dying of cancer is a decent way to measure success?

And it bears note that cancer is not the only example of this. One can go back centuries and point to research and exploration done by governments, where no one else had the resources to do so.

Another relevant measure of success might be the survival of humanity as a whole. Thus for example, existential threats to humanity like large near Earth asteroids are an obvious threat. Are you ok with taxes that go to fund defense against such threats?

Everybody knows that everything causes cancer in California.

Thank California's Prop 65 for this nonsense.

I've seen a lot of warning labels on electronic products with California-specific cancer warnings. Stuff like "The state of California has determined that this product may be a cancer risk". One of them was... I kid you not... a keyboard.

So if 1000 doses given to one mouse causes cancer, then it's likely that 1 dose given to each of 1000 people will cause one case of cancer.

Even if that's true, keep in mind the lifetime risk for a male developing cancer is on the order of 40% already. 1/1000 is barely background noise.

I was quite the Diet Coke addict for a couple years before cutting way back earlier this year. Still, I wish there were some flavorful beverage that I could enjoy without worrying about whether it'll cause me diabetes or cancer or weight gain, as pretty much all soda/diet soda has been shown to do in high enough doses. I also can't stand coffee (too bitter) or tea (mashed leaves floating in lukewarm water.... mmmm), so it's mainly ice water for me these days.

Have you noticed that EVERYTHING seems to cause cancer?

It is a wonder that not everyone has cancer, with so many things causing it. (*)

I really doubt all the different classes of sleep meds are carcinogenic.

*

Too much sun
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/guide/sun-exposure-skin-cancer

Not enough sun
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004179538_vitamind13m.html

Being overweight
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity

Being underweight
http://foodforbreastcancer.com/news/underweight-women-have-higher-risks-of-breast-cancer-recurrence-and-metastasis

Too little exercise
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-nutrition/leslie-beck/prolonged-bouts-of-sitting-increase-cancer-risk/article2229466/?service=mobile

Too much exercise
http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2006/12/too-much-exercise-causes-cancer.html

Too little vegetables
http://www.cancer.org/Healthy/EatHealthyGetActive/EatHealthy/fruits-and-vegetables-do-you-get-enough

Too many vegetables
http://www.keytobeing.com/2009/pesticides-in-fruits-veggies-linked-to-cancer-parkinsons-more

Even chemo"therapy"
http://www.cancer-free-for-life.com/articles/chemotherapy.php

It is not at all clear that getting aggressive cancers early affects any change in outcome.

5 year breast cancer survival rates:
Detected at stage 1: 88%
Detected at stage 4: 15%
Source: http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/DetailedGuide/breast-cancer-survival-by-stage

You're right, dunno why we bother screening.

However, it is not at all clear that those detected at stage 1 are all the same types as those detected at stage 4. If a significant fraction of those detected at stage one would NEVER progress beyond stage one lets call them "type A", with the aggressive ones called "type B", then it is at least possible that "type A" has a 15% survival rate no matter what stage it is detected, and is responsible for much of the 12% death rate in the early detection pool, as well as the 85% death rate in the later detection pool. Treating the "type A" cancers early could provide no benefit - and since it is benign it makes it look like early detection increases survival rates even if it does not.

To be fair to the original poster, he did say "It is not at all clear that getting aggressive cancers early affects any change in outcome." Your data does not separate out the "aggressive" and "non-aggressive" cancers. Part of the problem is that it is not clear what (if anything) differentiates the different levels of cancer aggressiveness.

Ionizing radiation is high-frequency radiation that has enough energy to remove an electron from (ionize) an atom or molecule. Ionizing radiation has enough energy to damage the DNA in cells, which in turn may lead to cancer. Gamma rays, x-rays, some high-energy UV rays, and some sub-atomic particles such as alpha particles and protons are forms of ionizing radiation.

Non-ionizing radiation is low-frequency radiation that does not have enough energy to remove electrons or directly damage DNA. Low-energy UV rays, visible light, infrared rays, microwaves, and radio waves are all forms of non-ionizing radiation. Aside from UV rays, these types of radiation are not known to increase cancer risk.

It is important to understand the difference between these types of radiation. For example, the non-ionizing radiation given off by a cell phone or a television screen is not the same as the ionizing radiation you might get from x-rays taken in the hospital.

(emphasis my own). That really says it all, doesn't it?

Cell phones cause cancer (if at all) by magic!

rgb

Allegedly, ( & afaik it's actually been tested (to an extent)) it helps stop cancers/tumors!

* In fact? See here, straight from THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY on that very note -> http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/DietandNutrition/inositol-hexaphosphate

(Pretty damned cool & I hope you guys all pick up on this - well, except for the damned trolls around here that is... They should get cancer as far as I am concerned, & leave us all be!)

APK

P.S.=> You KNOW the "old saying" of "How could a billion Chinese be wrong?", well... I guess they aren't, but personally? I like INDIA'S RICE BETTER (Basmati rice RULES!!! Comes in 'sealed bricks', you have to see it, & cooks VERY quickly too!)

... apk

The good news, and some more truth, is that most of the people - even those with cancer - don't need to

The people dying of cancer right now probably disagree with you.

I'm sure they do. According to cancer.org there are around 1.6 million of them in this country. Which one would you like the "best oncologist" in the US to see first? Or should she just stop sleeping and try to spend a full 19 seconds with each?

Or is it just barely possible that having some of those people dying of more normal instances of cancer see, oh, the 2nd best oncologist while the best one focuses just a wee bit more might be more productive?

When the hell did a 1 in 2 (Men), 1 in 3 (Women) risk of developing cancer during a person's life become an outlier? US healthcare is an abysmal failure for anyone unable to achieve and maintain employment of sufficient quality to leverage available health services. It only works for the healthy middle-class, the independently wealthy, sometimes children, and sometimes elderly.

Hey, I'm in the mood for digging out facts today. Perhaps the knowledge is there and lung cancer is decreasing, but nevertheless overall there is much more cancer than 50 years ago. Check it out:

Cancer Figures 1930-2010 as PDFs

Regarding computers, cellphones, and microwaves you're right though, and if you define "assets" in this way it might be totally okay that the average salary of a CEO was 39 times higher as that of a worker in 1970 and is now 1039 times higher, or that 21.9 percent of all US children are in poverty, a poverty rate second only to that of Mexico’s.

Seriously, we need to stop holding peoples hands. Think about the number 9000..it is roughly .003% of the US population. Instead of spending all that money on a statistically useless product why not help the 49.1 million US residents living with hunger issues (http://www.frac.org/html/hunger_in_the_us/hunger_index.html), or the 1 million people (min) in the US with cancer http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-026210.pdf. The point is that this does absolutely NOTHING to help anyone. So the in-car breathalyzer takes a few seconds...big deal. Its not worth waisting money on something so useless that .003% of the US would be affected by it. People die, that is the natural order of things, some earlier than others, you need to deal with it and move on. And before some ignoramus starts to whine about insensitivity because they lost someone to a drunk driving accident, everyone has problems and everyone has lost someone, you are in no way different from any other human on this planet, existentially speaking of course.

I already have, have you?

There isn't a single piece of hard evidence that the two are linked. Again, very qualified opinions by doctors who have studied the issue lead to the belief, and it's probably true.

However, second hand smoke is a different story altogether.

This article from Medical News Today says it's a widely accepted notion and goes on to say more research is needed.

This article from Cancer.org says there is strong evidence that the two are linked, and that more research is needed.
In 2006 the UK Scientific Community on Tobacco and Health issued a report describing "a tentative link between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and lung cancer."

Of course there are no real scientific studies to show why people who have never been exposed sometimes die of lung cancer, but George Burns lived to 100 and died from fluid buildup in his skull from a fall in the bathtub.

So to sum up, invitation preemptively accepted, although it appears I'm the only one in this conversation who actually has done any research.

Here: http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=257 Saving lives by helping people stay well, get well, find cures, & fight back Study Links More Time Spent Sitting to Higher Risk of Death Risk Found to Be Independent of Physical Activity Level A new study from American Cancer Society researchers finds it’s not just how much physical activity you get, but how much time you spend sitting that can affect your risk of death. Researchers say time spent sitting was independently associated with total mortality, regardless of physical activity level. They conclude that public health messages should promote both being physically active and reducing time spent sitting. The study appears early online in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Increasing obesity levels in the United States are widely predicted to have major public health consequences. A growing epidemic of overweight and obesity has been attributed in part to reduced overall physical activity. And while several studies support a link between sitting time and obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease risk factors (11, 16, 17), and unhealthy dietary patterns in children and adults (18–20), very few studies have examined time spent sitting in relation to total mortality (21–23). Thus, public health guidelines focus largely on increasing physical activity with little or no reference to reducing time spent sitting. To explore the association between sitting time and mortality, researchers led by Alpa Patel, Ph.D. analyzed survey responses from 123,216 individuals (53,440 men and 69,776 women) who had no history of cancer, heart attack, stroke, or emphysema/other lung disease enrolled in the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention II study in 1992. They examined the amount of time spent sitting and physical activity in relation to mortality between 1993 and 2006. They found that more leisure time spent sitting was associated with higher risk of mortality, particularly in women. Women who reported more than six hours per day of sitting were 37 percent more likely to die during the time period studied than those who sat fewer than 3 hours a day. Men who sat more than 6 hours a day were 18 percent more likely to die than those who sat fewer than 3 hours per day. The association remained virtually unchanged after adjusting for physical activity level. Associations were stronger for cardiovascular disease mortality than for cancer mortality. When combined with a lack of physical activity, the association was even stronger. Women and men who both sat more and were less physically were 94% and 48% more likely, respectively, to die compared with those who reported sitting the least and being most active. “Several factors could explain the positive association between time spent sitting and higher all-cause death rates,” said Dr. Patel. “Prolonged time spent sitting, independent of physical activity, has been shown to have important metabolic consequences, and may influence things like triglycerides, high density lipoprotein, cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, resting blood pressure, and leptin, which are biomarkers of obesity and cardiovascular and other chronic diseases.” The authors conclude that “public health messages and guidelines should be refined to include reducing time spent sitting in addition to promoting physical activity. Because a sizeable fraction of the population spends much of their time sitting, it is beneficial to encourage sedentary individuals to stand up and walk around as well as to reach optimal levels of physical activity.” Article: “Leisure Time Spent Sitting in Relation to Total Mortality in a Prospective Cohort of US Adults.” Alpa V. Patel, Leslie Bernstein, Anusila Deka, Heather Spencer Feigelson, Peter T. Campbell, 5 Susan M. Gapstur, Graham A. Colditz, and Michael J. Thun. Am J Epid Published online July 22, 2010 (DOI: 10.1093/aje/kwq155)

Of course with reposts of reposts the story can get a little inaccurate...

• American Cancer Society press release
• The actual paper (if someone has a subscription to American Journal of Epidemiology Online)

So the most obvious difference is that they're talking about leisure time spent sitting.
Also, it seems that the correlation is by means of "everything else being equal" (which is ok by itself, but the reporting is screwing about that). It doesn't mean that people with regular physical activity but sitting a lot have a higher mortality rate than people with lesser physical activity but sitting less, only that for the same level of activity, people sitting more in their leisure time have a higher mortality rate.

Your skepticism was right.

The risk seem to be waay higher already!

I'm going to die anyway - it makes no difference to me if it happens at age 60 or 70.

I'm sorry to hear that you value your life so little.

(Or perhaps you're just very young...your opinion may change when you're 60. Family lore has a story about my grandmother going to nursing school when she was 50, and some snot-nosed young brat in her geriatric medicine class saying, "I just hope I live to be 50, by then I will have done everything I want." Grandma, bless her, gave that kid an rapid education.)

I am of the opinion that insurance is unnecessary for young healthy people (below age 60), since the odds of getting sick are about the same as the odds of winning the lottery. i.e. Near-zero.

You are wrong by several orders of magnitude.

Odds of winning hitting the jackpot in a 6/49 Lotto: 1 in 13,983,816.

Odds of getting cancer before age 40: 1 in 70 for men, 1 in 50 for women.

I consider MY view to be the more intelligent one and since this is a "free" country, I am entitled to the view.

Yes, you are entitled to that view. As I have demonstrated, it is based on hideously wrong assumptions, but you're entitled to it anyway. And I am entitled to the view that "Tax policy is giving you an incentive to behave more intelligently". Great, now that we've affirmed each other's rights of belief and speech...what's your point?

Not really. I mean, I struggle to find anyone over the age of 75 that doesn't regularly use a cell phone, and I live in Wichita, Kansas. We are not bleeding-edge technology adapters. [i]Everyone[/i] (in a statistically significant way) uses cell phones. For the number of instances of brain cancer to fall and or hold steady in the last 20 years AND for cell phones to have a statistical impact on brain cancer rates, there would have to be some great "holy shit, this causes brain cancer so let's stop doing it" that went on at the same time. And is there any great holy grail of brain-cancer prevention going on? No. Not according to the American Cancer Society. There's just no evidence of any rise whatsoever despite the massive public experiment involving holding these devices to hundreds of millions of heads.

...they ban the toys, but keep the crap food?

Nonsense, the food is perfectly healthy! How much you ingest of it, however, is entirely up to you and that's what makes such a difference. You can use this calculator to determine how much calories you need per day: http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_6_1x_Calorie_Calculator.asp

You seem to be assuming that cancer treatment has made great strides since 1970. Actually it hasn't.

It has, whether you want to admit it or not. Are you going to dismiss the ACS as a shill for the health care industry? Here (PDF file) is a pretty comprehensive overview; I direct your attention particularly to the "Trends in 5-year relative survival rates" table on page 18.

And yes, of course cancer treatment centers oversell their treatments. But your claim that:

Actually most cancers have pretty much the same prognosis today they did in 1970.

is absolutely false. You do a nice bait-and-switch there, noting correctly that:

The list of cancers that was incurable in 1970 and is curable today is extremely short.

and then pretending that it supports your earlier claim. But in fact the two claims are completely different. We may not be able to cure most cancers, but we can greatly extend both the quantity and quality of life available to patients who are diagnosed with cancer relative to what we could do 40 years ago. While it is quite true that treatment for almost any kind of cancer is a miserable experience, if you think the level of misery is anywhere near what it was in 1970, then you simply haven't been paying attention.

I'm not going to argue against the idea that more basic research is needed -- hell, I work in basic biomedical research, so it would be absurd for me to make that argument. But I came here from patient care, and I can tell you that we need more research at all levels, "from bench to bedside" as the cliche goes. You can't tell a patient who's been diagnosed with a painful and probably fatal disease, "Well, we might have something that can help you fifteen years from now, but you're SOL since you'll be dead for twelve of those years."

Also, I detected a whiff of anti-government, anti-"Big Science" in your original post. Where exactly do you think the money for basic biological research comes from? Hint: it ain't Merck and Pfizer.

or you're doing the exact same thing you're accusing me of.

No, it's not the same thing. You posted a false deduction as fact without regard to veracity. I knew the *facts* before I posted, whether I gave a citation or not. What you thought to be an obvious fact (that the pancreas is not part of the respiratory system, therefore smoking cannot cause pancreatic cancer) is false, and you posted without bothering to check whether your deduction was, in fact, true. Not only is your deduction false, but it demonstrates your lack of knowledge about physiology -- otherwise you would have known that inhaled substances get into the bloodstream and can affect other systems. You are in no position to be making the kind of ridiculous scathing posts you made.

Since you're too fucking lazy to bother with a quick googling when called out on your ignorance and misplaced cavalierness,

here you go.

Seriously, it's been fairly common knowledge among everyone who is mildly interested in pancreatic cancer for at least ten years that cigarette smoking increases incidence of pancreatic cancer.

I'm a nonsmoker.

There are economic advantages to smoking. It seems very silly to ban smoking everywhere, and at the same time keep worrying about the "aging population problem".

1) Smokers tend to die sooner after their productiveness declines. Whereas healthy nonsmokers are more likely to live for 1, or 2 more decades thus using up more resources and still get something just as expensive as lung cancer. Remember eating all that healthy stuff and getting good exercise means you are less likely to get heart disease or a stroke and so you are more likely to die of cancer. You can't avoid death, just postpone it.

2) If you do it right the tobacco taxes more than make up for what they cost (which means they help pay for the nonsmokers like me :) ).

For example: in the UK smoking related problems cost the NHS 5 billion pounds a year. However the tobacco taxes bring in 10 billion pounds a year. Thus UK smokers contribute more than they take out from the system. And it's easier to make smokers pay more in taxes, than to increase income or sales taxes.

By all means educate people about the dangers of smoking, and take measures to prevent nonadults from smoking. But if adults still want to smoke, let them - as long as it doesn't cause stuff to blow up etc.

As for 2nd hand smoke, it's simple: to increase the number of smoke-free places (e.g. restaurants, pubs), just tax places that allow smoking more than those that don't (e.g. require more expensive operating licenses). That way you get increased tax revenue, while maintaining choice. Banning doesn't increase tax revenue at all.

There are lots of unhealthy/risky stuff we do everyday which makes the danger of 2nd hand smoke pale in comparison. Consuming large fries+fizzy sugar water every day will probably kill most people faster than having them breathe in 2nd hand cigarette smoke everyday.

Compare:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/ped/content/ped_10_2x_secondhand_smoke-clean_indoor_air.asp
http://health.howstuffworks.com/death-by-auto-accident-or-french-fry2.htm

Yes there's a choice to consume fries or not. But with my suggestion (taxing places that allow smoking) there'll also be choice for both nonsmokers AND smokers.

Maybe every year a country should give a posthumous award (The Black Lung?) to the top smokers who died contributing to their country... ;)

So to you smokers out there, "Thanks!"

Wow, and by spouting a wall of text, you sound almost smart.

Tell me, do you work for a big pharma company? Seriously, they're easy targets, but do you - or anyone modding this - have ANY idea at how expensive new drugs are to create? They take years to a decade of studies, trials, research, refinement, etc. And sometimes, right at the end, after you've sunk billions of dollars into it - it doesn't work out. A trial comes back negative. A long-term side effect is discovered. The drug is rejected, and you just lost all of your investment. Billions of dollars, years of effort by thousands of people - all for nothing. It's an enormous gamble, and enormously expensive - the only way these companies stay in business at all is by wringing every penny they can out of a drug while it's under patent - because there's no guarantee there will be a new drug to pick up the revenue when the old one goes generic. If you're wondering, some of these companies get 30% or more of their total revenue from a SINGLE DRUG.

Now, it's similarly easy to say that they're being cruel and heartless not to give these drugs away for free to impoverished nations - and in an ideal world, you'd be right. Unfortunately, if they do so, none of those drugs will reach the people that need them. It will be like all international aid, but an even larger bonanza for the black market - they'll all be smuggled back out of the country and to those countries that pay full price. Along the way, who knows how they'll be tampered with, "watered down", etc to extend the profit. In the end, people in poor countries still don't get drugs, the black market gets a huge influx of cheap drugs with a huge potential for tainting and unknown interactions, and the pharma companies don't recoup their enormous investments.

But yes, let's all pile on - of all things - the Gates Foundation, which has been one of the more pre-eminent charities in the world over the last decade. I know this is Slashdot and anything with "Gates" is automatically evil, but this is insanity.

If smoking is as dangerous as they claim it is, people 50+ would be dying from lung problems and other smoking related problems in droves - but they're not.

They are.

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_2X_Cigarette_Smoking_and_Cancer.asp

(quote from there: "Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.")

A Google search will quickly show you that you couldn't possibly be more wrong.

Tobacco smoke residue is less of a bio-hazard than the keyboard of any computer, which contain all kinds of pathogens from people touching it.

Cite your source, or you're just making stuff up.

How about this: The American Cancer Society says:"Though unknown, the cancer-causing effects would likely be very small compared with direct exposure to secondhand smoke, such as living in a house with a smoker.". According to the CDC, the seasonal flu kills 36,000 Americans per year. If you want, you can perform a peer-reviewed study on this.

In any case, it's not up to me to prove this. It's up to Apple to prove that thirdhand smoke is a bio-hazard worthy of voiding a warranty. My spider-senses tell me that this would not hold up in any court of law.

I'm not claiming anything about spending; only health outcomes.

My main point is that five year cancer survival rates can be misleading, which you don't seem to have disputed.

Unnecessary screening and/or treatment can affect health outcomes. For prostate cancer, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against screening for men aged 75 or older and says that there is insufficient evidence to make a recommendation regarding screening for those under 75. As for the harms of screening and treatment:

• The harms of screening include the discomfort of prostate biopsy and the psychological harm of false-positive test results.

• Harms of treatment include erectile dysfunction, urinary incontinence, bowel dysfunction, and death. A proportion of those treated, and possibly harmed, would never have developed cancer symptoms during their lifetime.

From the American Cancer Society:

The American Cancer Society (ACS) does not support routine testing for prostate cancer at this time. ACS does believe that health care professionals should discuss the potential benefits and limitations of prostate cancer early detection testing with men before any testing begins. This discussion should include an offer for testing with the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital rectal exam (DRE) yearly, beginning at age 50, to men who are at average risk of prostate cancer and have at least a 10-year life expectancy. Following this discussion, those men who favor testing should be tested. Men should actively take part in this decision by learning about prostate cancer and the pros and cons of early detection and treatment of prostate cancer.

http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/

Redirects to:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/don/don_0.asp

I can think of two possibilities:

1) Article is bogus
2) Article site got hacked

I visited the site http://beginningruby.org/ as well and was redirected to http://www.cancer.org/docroot/don/don_0.asp. I suspected someone has hacked the domain name or web site and redirecting to the cancer.org. You can view the original content by googling the site and checking the cached content.

Weird, I just got redirected to http://www.cancer.org/docroot/don/don_0.asp, is somebody having this problem too?

Substantially less useful; but not entirely useless. Breast Cancer in males is uncommon; but not unheard of.

Evidence suggests that there is no significant reduction in sensation. Then we also have things like this. American Cancer Society Article as one of many medical related articles. None of the dissenting medical opinions even float the insane notion that it is genital mutilation and child abuse as many slashdotters seem to indicate. At most they say it shouldn't be done unless medically necessary. You know...for those times when that forskin causes erections to be painful and pretty much reduces sexual pleasure to a painful experience...

The CDI says:

A dirty bomb -- or radiological dispersion bomb -- is a relatively unsophisticated device that combines radioactive materials with conventional explosives. When exploded, such a device scatters radioactive particles into the environment. No nuclear-fission reaction takes place as would occur with a true nuclear weapon, and, while anyone within the initial blast radius will probably be killed immediately, more casualties would probably result from the long-term effects of the dispersed radioactive material. According to Michael Levi, the physicist who managed a Federation of American Scientists' (FAS) study into the effects of a dirty bomb explosion, protecting yourself after such an attack is a matter of getting indoors, showering, and not eating contaminated food or breathing open air. As he put it: "It's really a matter of closing your windows and waiting for instructions." 6 Levi also cautioned that the much-hyped potassium iodine anti-radiation pills said to be selling so well in the wake of the attorney general's announcement, are likely to be of limited use against dirty bombs, as most studies predict the use of non-iodine radiation in any such device. 7

Moreover, Dr. John W. Poston Sr., professor of nuclear engineering at Texas A&M University, and chairman of a committee that produced a study on dirty bombs for the national Council on Radiation Protection, contends that the dispersal method used in such a device would so dilute the radioactive material involved as to make any radiation doses incurred non-fatal. Similarly, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1.5 pounds of radioactive cesium dispersed by detonating 4,000 pounds of TNT would only increase the amount of radiation that most of the affected people are normally exposed to by 25 percent. 8 As Mark Gwozdecky of the International Atomic Energy Agency put it: "It's hard to imagine any kind of dirty bomb producing the kinds of mass casualties that we saw on Sept. 11." Such a device would, he added, be a weapon of mass disruption rather than a weapon of mass destruction.

Again, dirty bombs don't work.

Let's move on to the next point:

These conclusions were corroborated by the FAS study, which found that, while a dirty bomb would not inflict deaths on anything like the scale of even a crude nuclear device, widespread contamination exceeding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) safety guidelines could result. If the risk of cancer deaths could not be curtailed to around 1-in-10,000, the EPA would probably recommend the long-term evacuation of the contaminated area.

Again, we hear that dirty bombs don't work. I've also highlighted an interesting point for you. The EPA will evacuate when there is a danger of 1 cancer in 10,000 eventually developing. Let's be clear on that. There is no immediate danger and more than enough time for an orderly evacuation of the affected street blocks. For comparison, your normal chances of dieing of cancer are 11 in 50 per the 2005 census of US Mortality.

In addition, the government has known for some time that their cancer models for radiation are highly conservative and do not actually reflect reality. So you are even safer than originally thought.

Now let's consider the property damage. If dispersed outdoors, the streets and exteriors of the building will need to be decontaminated. What does that mean? That means that teams run around with Geiger counters and identify where exactly there is radiation being produced above acceptable limits. The areas would then be washed down and the dirty water collected for disposal.

If dispersed indoors, then what? Well, a section of a building may need to be stripped, decontaminated in a similar fashion to the outdoors, then rebuilt. Materia

The long-term cost of smoking to society is estimated to be around $7 per pack of cigarettes smoked in medical care and lost productivity. Taxation is one way of internalizing these costs while at the same time increasing the incentive to not smoke. There's a Time article that covers a few other points for and against the taxes.

Oh, there are always good justifications for major social-engineering projects. And this is one that a lot of people (mostly non-smokers) have no problem with because they don't feel it affects them ... let those nasty smokers pay for their own bad habits. The problem, as I said before, comes in when the Feds decide (for whatever reason) that they're going to come after you for some other heavy-duty tax to save you from yourself. I mean, what are the consequences, say, of a diet heavy in fast-foods? Should be taxing the hell out of Big Macs? The social costs of diabetes (and other dietary-related conditions) are comparable to tobacco. What about driving? People die from that all the time, both from traffic accidents and pollutants. Electric power? Thousands of people die every year because of power-plant emissions ... some number from cancer caused by thorium emissions from coal burning. There are many, many products and activities that cause long-term harm to human beings. Do we tax them all?

It's a bad road to be going down.

The long-term cost of smoking to society is estimated to be around $7 per pack of cigarettes smoked in medical care and lost productivity. Taxation is one way of internalizing these costs while at the same time increasing the incentive to not smoke. There's a Time article that covers a few other points for and against the taxes.

I'm not sure where you get your statistics but according to the American Cancer Society, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and second only to lung cancer (with smoking the predominant risk factor) in terms of mortality. The primary breast cancer is not the biggest problem, metastasis is the really killer when the cancer spreads elsewhere in the body.

http://www.cancer.org/downloads/stt/CFF2008Table_pg44.pdf

But, they don't seem to quite get that, and public perception is that diesels are dirty, so...

I'm not saying that things aren't better.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_1_1x_EPA_Reports_Diesel_Linked_To_Lung_Cancer.asp

I'm just saying there are reasons that diesel has a bad image.

unfortunately the best i can do relates to a foreign city http://www.walk.com.au/pedestriancouncil/Page.asp?PageID=186

i heard this 'anecdote' from my case manager, and as such was struggling to try to find information about how bad pollution is for the lungs. http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_11_1_Pollution_Versus_Tobacco.asp suggests that cancer risk is higher with tobacco than with pollution, but that "Dirty air does contribute to lung cancer risk, but has a greater impact on heart disease, asthma, and chronic bronchitis"

so you could suffer a heart attack just from jogging in smog, or develop asthma just from living in NYC.